Just to follow up regarding our discussion with Jim Christian at the Phoenix WordPress Conference, I did some additional research regarding the changes in Google for 2009-2010. Apparently code name: “Caffeine” will be the next generation of search architecture. Although it appears that the launch will not be until the holidays, there’s a lot of buzz going on regarding how this will impact the state of SEO.
According to Mashable.com, Google Caffeine may impact the following:
Speed: How fast can the new search engine load results?
Accuracy: Which set of results is more accurate to the search term?
Temporal Relevancy: Is one version of search better at capturing breaking news?
Index Size: Is it really more comprehensive than the last version of Google?
Although I don’t believe you will see much notable difference from an end user perspective, when it comes to SEO – we may see some changes in the coming months. Areas I specifically will be paying attention to involve site speed with WordPress blogs. I’ll be conducting some testing and monitoring carefully http://theclashblog.com, as most of our SEO testing is done internally especially during any algorithm change. Code.Google.com has some fun little tools, which covers areas such as site speed. Keep you posted on what I discover…
With all of this in mind – I still believe the value of quality written, fresh content will still be as important than ever. I fundamentally believe the core of SEO is about improving the user experience. I’m not a big proponent of “tricking” the search engines as it may generate an initial spike in ranking or traffic…. it doesn’t hold value for companies when it comes to branding, loyalty, and overall marketing strategy.
What do I mean by improving user experience? Giving your readers what they want… the best, well written content possible (not just for SEO or self promotion), with relative keywords, appropriate image usage, engaging videos, interactive social media that participates with the readers and solid coding. So, I welcome this change as hopefully Google.com will be able to weed out other black hat SEO techniques that really provide little value.